The present invention relates to a new distinct cultivar of Hedychium (ornamental ginger or ginger lily) botanically known as Hedychium muluense, and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Ramata’.
Hedychium plants are suitable for landscape use, but their height (up to 2 m or more) generally limits their use as potted plants. Furthermore, Hedychium plants are well known for the diversity of their flower colors, but their green foliage is mostly uniform and lacks variation. To the best of our knowledge, only three variegated cultivars, ‘Dr. Moy’ (unpatented), ‘Tahitian Flame’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 19,921 P2), and ‘Vanilla Ice’ (unpatented) are commercially available as of November 2010, and these three cultivars are related. ‘Tahitian Flame’ occurred as a natural branch mutation of ‘Dr. Moy’, and ‘Vanilla Ice’ is a sport of ‘Dr. Moy’. None of these variegated cultivars is dwarf.
Open pollinated seed were collected from greenhouse grown Hedychium muluense plants and regenerated in vitro in Poplarville, Miss. Callus and callus-derived somatic embryos were obtained from the in vitro regenerated plantlets. In 2007, a variegated somaclone plantlet was selected among the regenerated populations derived from somatic embryos of Hedychium muluense. The selected plantlet was micropropagated and plants subsequently transferred to the greenhouse in Poplarville, Miss. where they were further multiplied asexually via rhizome division and evaluated for four generations. ‘Ramata’ is the only Hedychium cultivar that combines both dwarfism and leaf variegation. The leaf variegation of Ramata is uniformly distributed and stable.